


Black and White and Red All Over

by damnslippyplanet



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannibal is Hannibal But Attempting To Be Less So, Hannibal's Blood Kink, Hannibal's Scar Kink, Hope You Weren't Looking For Plot With Your Smut, M/M, Will Is Having None Of That, Will is a Bossy Muffin, there is zero plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5915482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnslippyplanet/pseuds/damnslippyplanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Hannibal is trying so hard to be a good little cannibal boyfriend and take things slow regarding his boner for Will's blood, and Will... well.  Will's waited three years and three years is long enough.  If he has to drag Hannibal bodily over a metaphorical cliff just like he did the actual cliff, then he will.  Ain't love grand?</p><p>(Or: this was supposed to be a short prompt fic, and these aren't even my own kinks!, the fanfic author wails into the night as the story just...keeps...writing...itself.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter of this already appeared in [my Tumblr prompt compilation](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5577109/chapters/13499662), because I really did think it was a one-shot. But it seemed weird to post the rest here without including it. So please forgive the duplication, as well as my hubris in continuing to think I'm capable of writing one-shots that don't take on lives of their own.
> 
> Also, this is basically just one big excuse to indulge certain friends of mine in their scar- and blood-kinks related to Hannigram. There is zero plot here. I'm so, so sorry.

The second time they make love (although maybe it’s the first, because that first time, really, had just been straight-up fucking, love there somewhere but buried under too much other history that needed exorcising), Hannibal lays Will out on the narrow berth not really built for two, and takes his time. And Will, he just…melts, for a while, the whir of his too-busy brain fizzing into white noise, until it shuts off completely and he becomes a creature of sensation. 

Hannibal wonders how long he could keep Will like this, if he tried, his constant fight and wariness gone, his words gone, defenses not so much shattered as cast away willingly. He wonders how he lived without this. How he’d ever thought he could. 

In the moonlight through the small cabin window, Will is all pale skin and mussed dark curls, a twisting, arching, fey thing of darkness and light.

Hannibal adores him, just as he is, he’ll draw him this way a dozen times. But he is who he is as well, and he can’t help but think: _red_ , _against all that pale skin_. 

He thinks it as he kisses and licks and touches, he thinks it as he presses teeth down so, so gently, he never would break the skin, but oh, he can imagine… 

And maybe Will isn’t as gone as all that, because he stirs from his depths enough to say, “Go on, Doctor. You know you want to.“ 

Hannibal nearly breaks the skin right then. Instead he places another kiss on it and lifts his head to look at Will’s face and asks, “Are you in any condition to be making decisions right now? If so, I’m not doing this right.“ 

Will arches into his hands, just a little, a helpless unplanned motion that clenches Hannibal’s entire body with wanting, and asks hoarsely, "Have I ever not given you what you wanted from me? You can have this, too." 

Hannibal thinks of a dozen different arguments quickly. All the times he wanted and did not get. And then he considers where they are right now and decides that if you take the long view, then apparently Will has given him everything he ever wanted. All debts paid up between them, finally. Leaving them free to give and take, play and fight, incur new debts and pay them back willingly, a game he knows he’ll never tire of.

He blinks back a sudden rush of feeling that wants to be tears, and traces a finger over the pale expanse of skin that he very much wants to bloody and says, "Tell me to stop.” He places teeth but does not, quite, bite. 

Will, just to prove that he _could_ speak to stop this but chooses not to, because Will never just _lets_ anything happen, manages to laugh and say sharply, “No.” He manages to find the motor control to twist a hand into Hannibal’s hair, not to pull him back but to press him down harder. 

And Hannibal just gives up, and breaks, and bites down until he tastes blood between his teeth. He’s trying to think about control, he’s trying to think about their medical kit and how carefully he’ll clean this wound, what good care he’ll take of Will, but it all flies out of his head at the sound Will makes. A choked sobbing little thing, but he’s still twining fingers into Hannibal’s hair, he’s bending into it, he’s doing everything Hannibal could ever have imagined and the only reason Hannibal stops instead of trying to just drain Will like some kind of overgrown vampire bat is that he needs to _see_ what he’s done. 

He carefully, so carefully, removes his teeth from Will’s shoulder and sits up enough to see what he’s done. It’s a small bite, barely a trickle, but the red of Will’s blood stands out beautifully against his skin, against his dark hair and the moonlight. Hannibal stares for a long entranced moment and then says half to himself, “Pencil won’t do. I’m going to have to take up painting.”

Will groans, half-lust and half-irritation, and says, “You are _not_  planning new hobbies right now. For fuck’s sake, Hannibal, come here.”

And he drags Hannibal back down, and licks the taste of his own blood from Hannibal’s lips, and Hannibal forgets entirely about the necessity of acquiring paints, at least until morning.


	2. Chapter 2

“You never touch it.”

Will’s half in his head and half out, and it’s one of those moments where words come out of his mouth before his brain’s processed that he’s going to say them or even what the thought behind them is. That hasn’t happened lately. It used to happen a lot more when he was spending his time trying not to drown in killers’ minds, saying horrifying things accidentally in front of the forensics team.

He’s less used to it happening when he’s sprawled in a chair with a killer kneeling between his legs, but then that’s a fairly new occurrence in his life.

He tries not to crack a smile as Hannibal looks up and quirks an eyebrow at him - apparently unwilling to free up his mouth for as long as it would take to point out that his hand is quite aggressively touching Will just fine, thank you. Just in case he’s missed the point, Hannibal squeezes, just a bit, and Will loses the grin and part of his mind along with it, because god damn, does that feel good.

But there was something his brain was putting together without his awareness, something… oh.

“Not that, fuck,” he manages to say. “You touch that just fine. Best I’ve ever had it, maybe,” and he only says the maybe to get under Hannibal’s skin, because it’s irresistible, but there’s really no question about it. “My scar. You touch me everywhere else, but never there. You barely look, even when you’re right there on your knees for me. Does it bother you that much?”

That’s apparently not something Hannibal can address with an eyebrow, and Will sighs as Hannibal pulls away from him, half in his lap and somehow still managing to avoid looking anywhere near the lower left-hand side of Will’s torso. “Is this really the conversation you want to have right now, Will? Were my efforts boring you that much?”

Will’s uncomfortably aware of chill air where a moment ago there was the soft wet heat of Hannibal’s mouth, and he considers dropping the whole line of conversation. But he’s already figuring out that Hannibal will let him avoid anything and it’s too tempting to take advantage of that to not have the conversations they need to have.

Hannibal thinks Will’s one of his fragile teacups, that touched or spoken to the wrong way he might fracture or run screaming into the night. Whatever Will wants, he has to push for. He has to take. It’s always given freely - maybe there’s something Hannibal would say no to but Will hasn’t found it yet - but he does have to ask, or just take.

It’s not what he had thought this would be like, when he’d let himself think about it at all - but he’s finding he doesn’t mind. Not a bit. He suspects that eventually when Hannibal realizes Will’s not going anywhere, he’ll push back, and that ought to be interesting, but Will’s not in a hurry for it. This is good, just like it is, between them.

So he rests a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder, just enough to keep him where he is, and reassures him before he sets about trying to understand and dismantle whatever’s going on here. “You’re never boring. I don’t think you could be. But I want to understand. Why are you avoiding it? I can’t imagine you don’t want to touch it.” 

He does refrain from saying even Bedelia knew you’d be proud of it, but it’s a close thing. Hannibal doesn’t need to be reminded that Will and Bedelia got together and discussed him; his ego’s not in need of any further inflation.

Hannibal drops his gaze to his hand where it’s resting on Will’s knee now, and looks like he’s searching for words. Struck silent, for once. Eventually he manages, “I didn’t think you’d want to be reminded. It must have taken a long time to recover from. It must have been excruciating the entire time.”

“Didn’t you mean it to be?” Will keeps his voice soft, and lets his fingertips rub gentle circles on Hannibal’s shoulder, trying to ease some of the tension there. He sees immediately that Hannibal can’t answer the question. “Never mind. Forget I asked. It’s fine, Hannibal. I’ve had it a long time; it’s just part of me now. I used to hate that it reminded me of you, but that’s not exactly a problem anymore. You can look, if you want. You can touch.”

He’s holding his breath without consciously intending to, as Hannibal’s eyes drag slowly up Will’s thigh and catch on the pale, jagged line that bisects his torso. Hannibal looks, finally, and once he does he can’t seem to look away. Will wonders if he even realizes that his mouth has fallen open slightly, like he wants to lick or taste or bite the mark.

It’s not an unpleasant idea. Will’s been unsurprised to find how much Hannibal likes to bite, blood-drawing or otherwise. He’s been a little surprised to find that he likes it too, not so much for himself, but for how it cracks open the foundations of Hannibal’s self-control.

Will likes seeing Hannibal get lost. He likes being the sea Hannibal drowns in, day after day. He thinks he knows how to drown and break Hannibal now, and how to stitch him back together again after. How to stitch him closer to Will’s own heart, each time.

Hannibal won’t touch. Fine, then. His aren’t the only hands in the room.

Will takes his hand from Hannibal’s shoulder and draws it up the same path Hannibal’s eyes took a few moments earlier. Back on his own knee, then up his thigh, past the crease of his hip, over his hip bone, up and up until he can trace the line of his scar himself. He touches very gently and then asks, “Does this bother you too? Seeing me touch it myself?”

He knows perfectly well Hannibal’s eyes are brown but he’d never know it now, they’re so wide and black, watching Will’s fingers. “I… no. Of course not.” His fingers twitch just slightly and press harder into Will’s thigh, and Will bites back a smirk at that.

“Would it bother you if I dug my nails in, just a little? It’s not very sensitive, there was nerve damage. I’d have to dig in pretty hard to feel it. Or you would, if these were your fingers instead of mine. Or your teeth.” It’s half a lie, the damage isn’t as extensive as he’s pretending, but it is there. He does have to scratch hard with a fingernail to feel it. He doesn’t need to look down to know he’s drawn a pretty welt across the line of his scar, at right angles to it. He can feel it rising under his fingertips as he traces them along the length of the scar again. He doesn’t need to look to do that; he felt every inch of it healing for all those months, he could trace it in his sleep. He’d hated having that knowledge, once, and he supposes there’s an odd sort of symmetry in the fact that he can torture Hannibal with it now.

He wonders just how badly Hannibal wants to trace that welt with his tongue, and then realizes he doesn’t have to wonder. He can ask. He’s holding all the cards here.

“This really isn’t so terrible to watch, is it, Hannibal? Are you sure you don’t want to touch it? Taste it, maybe? It is yours, in a manner of speaking.”

Will feels a little like a snake charmer or a hypnotist. He’s not even sure Hannibal knows his lips silently mouth something that looks like mine before he reaches out and skims just the tips of his fingers across Will’s belly, the one patch of skin on Will’s body left unexplored. His whole body shudders like he’s touched a live wire.

He surges up, then, and Will doesn’t try to stop him. In a moment Hannibal’s leaning over him, pressing him back into the chair, with his lips hot against Will’s skin. He doesn’t lick or bite or even really kiss, he just…touches, his mouth on Will’s scar like he’s performing some kind of sacrament. He holds there for a moment that feels like forever.

It’s an uncomfortable angle for Will, leaning back and still half-hard with his pants tangled around his ankles, but he doesn’t move. He just waits it out, whatever it is that Hannibal needs to work out about Will and his scar. Hannibal is so still that Will’s caught by surprise when the man finally moves. He murmurs Will once against his skin before suddenly dropping back down and taking Will back into his mouth with a vengeance, working him hard again almost before he has time to realize it. It’s over quickly, almost too quickly. But it’s so good that Will can’t do anything to hold back, and he doesn’t miss that the entire time Hannibal’s looking not up at Will’s face, but at his scar.

Will would almost miss seeing his expression properly except that he’s too delighted with himself, with having broken Hannibal’s resistance to one more of the barriers between them. He’s almost sure he laughs as he falls apart, a current like electricity running through his body, an ache so sweet he could cry from it, Jesus fucking Christ, Hannibal, it’s so fucking good, and he’s not even sure how much of that he says aloud or how much is just rolling around the inside of his head.

He does know that when he pulls himself together again Hannibal looks unbearably smug, and when he leans up to kiss Will, this time he puts his hands on both Will’s hips, not just the right one. His hand spanning Will’s left hip presses up against the scar and neither of them do a thing to move or stop it. It’s Hannibal’s to touch, now, when he wants.

He looks entirely too pleased, sitting back on his heels, disheveled but managing to appear as if hemeant to be that way. He looks too much as if he thinks he’s won this particular game, as if it hadn’t all been Will’s idea.

Which drives Will to play the last card he was holding, the one that feels too far and too fast and too dangerous. But, what the hell. He’s feeling a little reckless, a little high on endorphins and on being able to affect Hannibal this way. And really, what has anything been, since the instant he stumbled from the van to see Hannibal taking off his straitjacket, except too far too fast too much? 

He tries to catch his breath as he pulls his pants back up, fumbling with the zipper with hands that are still shaking a little. He leaves his shirt rucked up as it is. And he tries for the most innocent expression he can possibly muster as he asks, “One other question. The truth, please. Have you ever imagined opening it up again? Not deep, nothing too painful, just… I don’t know, a scalpel, maybe? I’m sure you’d have some ideas, doctor.”

And Hannibal just…stops. Moving, breathing, pretty much everything. Will thinks he may have blown a circuit somewhere in the man’s brain. And he’s almost sure that this is one thing Hannibal actually hasn’t let himself get anywhere close to thinking about, as much as he clearly gets off on Will’s blood in the limited way Will’s allowed him to so far.

He feels a vicious, illicit shocky thrill. It isn’t even something he wants, not anything he would particularly get off on himself. Having his damn stomach cut open once ought to be enough for any lifetime. But he’s fairly certain it would be a religious experience for Hannibal, and he thinks he might want to see that enough to let him do it. Maybe. If they were careful.

They’d probably need to practice first, somewhere else a little less fraught, and he finds he doesn’t mind the idea. He’s got a lot of unmarked skin and nothing but time to heal, these days, and a boundless need to see Hannibal lost in things only Will can give him.

“Breathe, Hannibal,” he offers, as gently as he can given that he’s still shaky himself. “I’m not saying now. I’m not saying ever, maybe. I’m just…it’s something to think about. For us both to think about. If you’re feeling better about the whole touching thing.”

“You’re trying to kill me,” Hannibal finally says, eyes shut tight, still on the ground, still not moving. “The direct route didn’t work so you’ve devised an incredibly convoluted and devious way to give me a heart attack and make me like it.”

Will finally tugs his shirt back down and stands up, after leaning forward to press a kiss to the top of Hannibal’s head. “I’m done with that. I’m trying to figure out how to live with you. Come on. Shower, and then lunch. Okay?”

He tugs gently at the collar of Hannibal’s shirt until the other man opens his eyes, takes the hand Will’s offering, and rises to his feet. They set off down the hall wordlessly, fingers interlaced.


	3. Chapter 3

Hannibal’s legs give out a second or two after Will’s, and they come crashing down to the bed in a heap of limbs and ragged breath, Will heavy and warm pressed against Hannibal’s back and pinning him into the sheets. Will doesn’t make even the slightest attempt to roll off him,or do anything except mumble, “Fucking hell, Hannibal” somewhere in the vague direction of his ear.

Hannibal thinks he might not move ever again, might just stay right here, the world’s most willing captive.  He does manage to turn his head to the side so he doesn’t actually suffocate, to draw one of Will’s splayed hands close enough to kiss the fingertips, and to unconvincingly complain, “There are words of more than four letters in the dictionary. I’ve heard you use them.”

He can’t see Will’s expression but he can just about _feel_ the grin pressed into the nape of his neck before Will kisses him there and says, “It doesn’t count as me being rude if you like it.  And you _do_ like it. Besides, if I can’t say _fuck_ when we’re actually fucking, when can I say it?"

“Never, preferably. It’s appalling. You’re appalling.”  He’s pretty sure he’s never sounded less appalled in his life, and that he’s not fooling anyone.

Will finally extracts himself from their tangle of bodies, but only long enough to roll off to the side next to Hannibal, so they can see each other properly.  Hannibal could not possibly be more delighted that they’ve finally found themselves in a place to stay with a proper bed.  He may be getting a little old for sailboat berths and lumpy twin beds in abandoned cabins.  

They drift for a while, lazy and thoroughly pleased with themselves, until eventually Hannibal stretches and sighs and offers, “I suppose we should get up at some point.  Do you want the first shower, or do you want company?”

He has a little bit of warning, at least - there’s a glint in Will’s eye that he’s learned means he’s in for some sort of surprise that _Will_ at least is delighted about, although Hannibal’s delight levels vary.  (Finding out that Will is actually a pretty accomplished cook in his own right was delightful; finding a raggedy stray dog curled up on their sofa was less so. Although he should have seen that coming, really. The surprise was mostly that it hadn’t happened sooner.)

Will doesn’t tip his hand yet, though, whatever he’s concocting.  He just nudges Hannibal toward the edge of his side of the bed with a hip-check and stretches theatrically.  “Neither.  You go clean up. I’m not sure my legs are working yet.”

Hannibal’s not entirely sure of his own, actually, but he sits up and swings his feet to the ground to test them out.  He inquires, “If I asked, would you tell me what that look on your face is about?”

Will pretends to consider that for all of five seconds.  “ _If_ you asked, I might.  But you won’t, because that would ruin my fun and you wouldn’t want to do that.  If I knew what you were talking about, anyway. Which I don’t.”

One of the utterly unexpected, utterly delightful things about cutting Will free from the rest of his life is that he’s turned out to have an actual sense of _fun_ , buried somewhere under all those layers of guilt and self-imposed isolation.  Hannibal loves it like he loves pretty much everything else Will does.  He loves slightly less that the sense of fun so often turns out to be exercised at Hannibal’s expense, but he’ll tolerate it for the sake of Will’s smile, increasingly frequent as the weeks pass.  He resigns himself to whatever is coming, hopes that it’s not another dog just yet (he has high hopes of putting that off at least another six months), and heads to the bathroom.

He takes his time with his shower, letting the hot water stream over him for several long minutes, tidying away new memories into his mind palace and allowing Will time for whatever terrible thing he has in mind.   _Maybe it will be a_ _small_ _dog, at least_ , he thinks as he wraps a towel around his waist.

The bedroom does not contain a small dog.

It does contain a bed remade, Hannibal’s almost certain with fresh sheets, and Will sitting atop them looking far too pleased with himself, along with their first aid kit and a package of what Hannibal recognizes from the doorway as sterile single-use scalpel blades.

He freezes, an odd term given that he also suddenly feels hot from head to toe, and manages to query, “...Will?”

Will’s moved on to full-on smirking now.  “Here’s the thing, Hannibal,” he says with far too much enjoyment, waving one of the wrapped blades at him.  “You can pretend that you hadn’t thought about this since I brought it up, if you want.  But the thing is, when I bought these I was going to tuck them away in the first aid kit for an opportune moment.  Except there was already a pack in there, that I’m certain wasn’t there when we bought the thing.  Not standard equipment, really.  So you’re going to have to be _really_ convincing if you want me to believe you didn’t have plans for them.”

 _Crimson and dripping over Will’s collarbone, perhaps enough to pool in the hollow of his throat if he tipped his head back just so, if Hannibal were to_ _make_ _him hold still just so..._

Hannibal breathes, and tries not to sway, and that’s about all he can manage.  Eventually he forces his suddenly-dry mouth to form words: “Not specific plans. Our life requires preparation for many possible eventualities. You’ll also have noticed a fairly good array of antibiotics and painkillers, if you were poking around. That doesn’t mean I’m _planning_ for either of us to get shot again anytime soon.”

“Good.  I’m not entirely sure where my limits are these days, but I’m pretty sure they don’t include recreational gut wounds.”  Will blinks at Hannibal far too innocently given what he clearly has in mind.  “Not that kind, anyway. So. I should probably go shower for this, right?”

Hannibal nods, and doesn’t speak, and tells himself he’s not committing to anything here.  Will would be next in line for the shower, regardless.  He can put away the...supplies...while Will’s in there, and that will be that.

He might do that, except that on his way past, Will wraps his arms around Hannibal, suddenly all affection and no teasing, and nuzzles up against his cheek for a minute.  And then he says, “We don’t have to, but I think you’d like to. Think about it while I’m washing up.  I’d like it to be somewhere I can watch you do it, and small to start. Just to see. But otherwise, you can pick where.  I trust you, Hannibal.”

Whether it was meant to be part of Will’s game or not, it’s the last four words that break him.  He can’t deny Will anything that includes such a declaration, even if he had truly wanted to.  Will’s trust is still such a new thing between them.  

While the shower runs, Hannibal finds a pair of pajama pants for himself and lays out a t shirt and briefs for Will.  He checks the door to be absolutely sure it’s firmly shut and they won’t have a canine visitor at an inopportune moment.  And then he sits on the bed and tries to keep breathing.  He’s at least fairly certain Will won’t keep him waiting long, and he doesn’t.  He emerges from the bathroom along with a puff of humid air, hair damp and curling, and comes right back to Hannibal for another little nuzzle, another soft kiss.

Hannibal wonders briefly if any of the people out there who must be losing sleep over how Will and Hannibal are spending their days after their deaths, could possibly imagine this. The gentleness and reassurance of it. Or how badly Hannibal wants to taste Will’s blood again. How the two tangle together and make perfect sense here in this room, between the two of them.

He directs Will to his clothes, the shirt and the briefs, and then tugs just at the collar of the faded t-shirt to press a kiss against the skin where he’d pictured earlier. “Here, someday, maybe,” he says, and feels a tremor run through Will, under his hand. “Not today, since you want to see.”

“It’s more that I want to see _you_ ,” Will answers. “But maybe some other day. Where, then?”

Hannibal pushes him to sit at the edge of the bed and then kneels in front of him, glad they just had sex - just _fucked_ , he thinks, hearing the word in Will’s voice and, yes, liking it  - so he can think straight. Otherwise he’d be too on edge to do this safely. And it has to be done safely, he has to be worthy of that trust Will’s giving him.

He touches Will’s right thigh gently, toward the outside.  “Here?”

He looks up in time to see Will swallow, hard, Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion.  “Okay.”  He doesn’t ask why, he doesn’t ask if it’s safe there, he just says okay. Just trusts, in a way that tugs at something in Hannibal’s chest.

He says, “Close your eyes, Will.”  He’s not sure if he’s trying to help Will focus, or if he just can’t concentrate with Will’s eyes on him.  He cuts off the noise of protest with, “I’ll tell you before I start, and you can watch then.  I promise.”  

Will closes his eyes reluctantly, and Hannibal shuts his own for just a second, to take a steadying breath.  And then he reaches for the alcohol wipes and carefully sterilizes a small circle on Will’s leg, with a circular motion to keep the spot clean.  lt’s all he can do not to press a kiss to the spot, but that rather defeats the purpose of sterilizing it.  He kisses the inside of Will’s thigh instead, soft pressure and just a hint of teeth, enough to feel the muscle beneath twitch in response.

He opens and fits one of the scalpel blades onto its handle, keeping an eye on Will’s tensing in response to the sounds and then his conscious, forced relaxation of his muscles again.  Hannibal’s suddenly sorry he gave Will a shirt to wear; he’d like to see his abdominal muscles clench under his scar.   _Next time_ , and the thought that he may get lucky enough for there to be a _next time_ washes over him, but he pushes it away for now to concentrate on the moment at hand.

He thinks for a moment and then flips his hold on the blade so it’s the handle, for now, that he presses into the skin of Will’s leg.  Drawing an invisible line with the dull edge of it just _there_ , where he’ll make the cut, and he manages not to smile as Will’s eyes fly open.  “I _told_ you I’d tell you first.  What happened to trusting me?”  

“I’m trusting you in about five different ways right now,” Will says with a voice suddenly gone gravelly.  And then: “ _Earn them_ , Hannibal.”

So Hannibal does.

He says, “Keep your eyes open,” and he readjusts his hold, and he presses the point of the blade against Will’s skin.  He waits a moment, for a quiver or a protest or for Will to tell him to stop, but he doesn’t.  He holds perfectly, unnaturally still.  Hannibal preserves the moment in a corner of his mind where he can return to it later, elaborate on it and make it a permanent part of his collection.

And then he presses and pulls toward himself, with infinite care and perfect precision.  He would very much like to see Will’s expression right now but that would require looking away from the thin crimson line he’s marking into Will’s skin, and he couldn’t do that if he wanted to.  He does manage to find breath to say, “Did you know that in medical school students are supplied with pigs’ feet to practice their sutures?  Making incisions and sewing them up again, over and over until you can do it in your sleep.”

He can feel Will trying not to squirm under his hands as he says, “Please tell me this is better.  If I went to all this trouble when I could have just bought you some pork…”

The line’s not as perfect as Hannibal would like it to be; he thinks his hand might be shaking a bit.  He thinks all of him might be.  He finishes the line, watches avidly as bright beads of red well up, and then drags his attention away to say, “I promise.  This is better.  This is… I don’t have words.”

Will’s eyes are huge as he looks at Hannibal, and then at the jewels of blood drops on his leg, and then back to Hannibal.  He doesn’t look aroused, exactly, but he looks - transported, maybe.  Mesmerized.  He breathes out a shaky little breath and then says, “Find the words.  Try, for me.  Tell me what this is for you.”

“Your heart.”  Hannibal doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he says it, and that’s unusual, but this is too raw a moment for that sort of premeditation.  He feels like he’s the one bleeding.  “It’s the closest I’ll ever get to seeing your heart. The way it wells up from inside you. The way you let me draw it from you.”

“Fucking... Jesus, Hannibal.  You can’t say things like that.”  He doesn’t sound angry, he sounds oddly pleased.

“I also find it beautiful. Every time I’ve seen blood on your skin, it’s been beautiful.  Every time someone  caused it who wasn’t me, I was jealous.  Is that closer to what you expected?  May I do another?”

He watches Will struggle with that for a moment and then nod. There’s a wild beauty in the way he gives in to it, because Hannibal wants it. “Yes.  One more, for now. Then ask me again.”

Hannibal lets his free hand drift to Will’s for a moment to touch it, as reassuring as a touch can be from someone who’s holding a scalpel in their other hand and planning where to cut, and then moves his hand back to steady himself again against the bed.  He considers carefully and then places the scalpel for a second cut,  a couple of inches over from the first and parallel.  A little deeper this time but only slightly.  The blood’s already drying on the first shallow slice and he wants badly to lick it, sterilized area or not.  And he will, after, if Will lets him.  But not yet.

He could almost forget that he’s working on a living body, could almost let this be purely art, but Will is just so unbelievably _alive_ and right there with him.  He’s so human it makes Hannibal human, too.

This cut drags a soft sound from Will along with the blood, somewhere between a whimper and a moan, and Hannibal’s own veins throb in response.  He keeps talking, mostly to keep Will soothed, maybe out of curiosity to hear just what he’s going to say.  “After this, I’m hoping you’ll let me taste your blood. You taste like the ocean and the forest, somehow, both together. Exquisite and rare. I like that nobody knows that but me.  At least, I assume that’s the case.”  He lifts the blade from Will’s thigh and he can _smell_ Will’s blood now, with the second cut.

“I can’t think of anyone else who’s felt compelled to lick my injuries, no.”  Will manages a little breath of a laugh at that.  Hannibal supposes he’s picturing his former wife, or Alana Bloom, or some other former lover, licking a hot wet stripe up his leg.  It’s just as well Hannibal’s not cutting, at that particular moment, as he struggles with a surge of jealousy.  It washes away when Will offers, “I’ll let you do one more today if you promise to keep it parallel.  Turn it into an ‘H’ and I’ll never let you do this again.”

Hannibal considers the offer and decides, not without some regret, that just having it offered it is enough. For tonight.  He sets the scalpel aside deliberately and leans in to erase any possible thoughts Will might be having about anyone else tasting his blood by doing it himself.  He licks a slow, thorough line up one cut and then the other, and finds himself thoroughly satisfied with the hitch he hears in Will’s breath.   He pulls back and waits for the fresher cut to well up again and then repeats the motion, pressing hard against the cut with his tongue as if he might crawl inside it, all the way up into Will’s heart after all.

“Fuck.  Hannibal.  That can’t be sanitary, what the hell did they teach you in med school?”  Will’s laughing now in a breathless, overstimulated way that Hannibal loves hearing.

Hannibal could lap and suck at Will’s skin forever but he forces himself away, up to meet Will’s eyes which are bright with tears or pain or love or maybe all three.  He finds his voice somehow to say, “This was not recommended practice for the pig’s feet, I confess.  But I’ll clean these well in a minute.  They’re not deep enough for stitches, we’ll just bandage them.”

“I...okay. In a minute. Come up here with me, first?”

He’s suddenly looking a little shaky.  Hannibal checks to make sure there’s no immediate danger with leaving the cuts alone for a few minutes, puts the scalpel out of the way where there’s no chance of cutting himself accidentally, and then climbs up onto the bed.  Will’s gone semi-boneless and Hannibal pulls him onto his side, where the cut leg won’t touch anything that might make it sting, and holds him tight for several minutes, murmuring nothing in particular into his ear until Will calms fully.

Later, when he’s sure Will’s all right, he'll clean and bandage the wounds carefully so they won’t scar.  He wonders if new scars might be something Will wants from him, eventually, but he suspects even Will doesn’t know the answer to that yet, so he doesn’t ask. He just says  _I'll take care of you_ and  _I will never let you go_ and he knows Will understands that he's really just saying  _I love you_ , over and over, the words flavored with Will's blood on his tongue.  They're the sweetest thing he's ever tasted.


End file.
